Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Gerard Depardieu, Thierry Lhermitte, Michele Laroque, Michel Aumont, Jean Rochefort, Alexandra Vandernoot, Stanislas Crevillen
Director: Francis Veber
Producer: Patrice Ledoux
Screenplay: Francis Veber
Cinematography: Luciano Tovoli
Music: Vladimir Cosma
U.S. Distributor: Miramax Zoë
In French with subtitles
As lighthearted French farces go, The Closet is somewhat more accessible to American audiences than most. Maybe it's a case of the French having a different sense of humor or maybe it's just that the comedy doesn't translate well with subtitles, but I have rarely found even the most acclaimed French comedies (e.g., The Visitors) to be more than passably amusing. In the case of The Closet, we're dealing with a movie that is often cute and occasionally funny, but is not especially clever or truly uproarious. And, for a film that deals overtly with sexual issues, The Closet is surprisingly tame. By French standards, this picture is positively Puritanical.
The premise is fairly simple and designed to take shots at members on both ends of the political spectrum - homophobes and those who espouse the doctrine of so-called "political correctness". François Pignon is an unimposing accountant who holds down a desk job at a rubber manufacturing plant (their chief product is condoms). One day, the company president, M. Kopel (Jean Rochefort), decides to cut his work force, and François becomes one of the impending casualties. In a last-ditch effort to save his job, he and his new neighbor, Belone (Michel Aumont), concoct a scheme: François will pretend to be gay, and the company will be afraid to fire him because such an action will open them up to a discrimination lawsuit as well as negative publicity. François' emergence from the closet has an effect on a number of people. One of his co-workers, the macho Felix (Gerard Depardieu), pretends to be friendly to François for fear that his overtly homophobic attitude will get him fired. François' disinterested teenage son, Franck (Stanislas Crevillen), suddenly sees his father as more interesting. Only François' boss, Mlle Bertrand (Michele Laroque), doubts that he's truly gay, and sets out to prove her theory.
The Closet is essentially a one-joke movie. Once, workers could be fired for coming out of the closet; now, in a case of turn-of-the-century irony, that's a foolproof way to keep a job. The humor in the film is of the hit-and-miss variety - some of it seems forced, but there are moments, such as when a group of Japanese businessmen view an unexpected incident of "product testing" at the rubber plant, when The Closet makes us laugh. From a political standpoint, the movie clearly has an ax to grind, and there are times when it comes dangerously close to preaching. The tone remains lighthearted, but no one who sees this movie will be in doubt that there is a political agenda. Strangely, however, while this material might have been cutting-edge ten years ago, it's old hat today. Few will be surprised by the film's central irony, since it (and things like it) are part and parcel of today's work market, and The Closet doesn't take the subject beyond the obvious. So, in short, the movie is good for a few laughs, but not much more.
The writer/director, Francis Verber, is a filmmaker whose scripts are often used as the bases for Hollywood remakes. His La Cage aux Folles became The Birdcage. Les Compères became Father's Day. Now, Verber is directing Dinner for Shmucks, the English-language re-working of his own The Dinner Game. The Closet, like those other films, has elements that, with the language barrier removed, could make it a crowd-pleaser (although, as yet, I have not heard any remake rumblings). There's nothing obtuse or pretentious about the movie. In fact, if there's a problem, it's that it has a tendency to be a little too silly and loosely constructed.
For The Closet, Verber has assembled an impressive cast that includes several current icons of French cinema: the venerable Gerard Depardieu (who seems like he has been in every French movie since the dawn of cinema), Daniel Auteuil (one of the best working actors today, recently seen in The Widow of St. Pierre), Thierry Lhermitte, and Jean Rochefort. For Depardieu and Auteuil, this is the first time they have worked together since their memorable turns in Jean de Florette, although it would be hard to find a more dissimilar movie to this one. The level of acting elevates The Closet; the characters seem better developed, more real, and we identify with them more easily because of the quality of the men and women who portray them.
The Closet has something to say, which is not true of the average American comedy. Unfortunately, the method of presentation is flawed. Veber takes a subject that is crying out for a dark, biting approach and gives it to us wrapped in an airy, farcical package. Did I laugh? Yes. Was I fully satisfied? No. I left the theater feeling that the movie should have delivered more than it ultimately did.
© 2001 James Berardinelli